SAN ANTONIO -- Until Tuesday night, the Miami Heat will be lamenting eight bad minutes.

Eight very bad minutes, actually.

So bad that they took away any realistic chance of winning Game 5 of the NBA Finals last
night. So bad that they put the reigning champions on the brink of elimination. So bad that they
ensured the Heat's season can be saved only by winning two games in Miami, or else they will face
the indignity of watching an opponent celebrate a title on their floor for the second time in three
years.

San Antonio closed the first quarter on a 15-2 run, then wrapped up the third with a 12-1
burst. And those flurries generated more than enough cushion than the Spurs would need on the way
to a 114-104 win that put them one win away from their fifth championship since 1999.

"We haven't really gotten beaten like that in a long time," Heat guard Mario Chalmers said.
"It just happened tonight, so something's got to change."

In those two bursts, the Spurs shot a combined 10 for 12. The Heat was 1 for 11.

More than anything else, those two stretches will be the ones that cause the Heat to cringe
when they watch the tape today.

"We're going to have to look at it and we're going to have to answer that question," Heat
coach Erik Spoelstra said. "There's no doubt about it. ... Can we put together our best game on
both sides of the floor in Game 6? We do feel good that we're going home, but we've got to earn
back that home court."

Game 6 will be in Miami on Tuesday. Game 7, if necessary, would be there on Thursday.

The score was 17-all with 4:45 left in the first quarter after LeBron James tied it for Miami
with a three-pointer. Score at the end of the first: Spurs 32, Heat 19, and it wasn't just the
ending that was bad for Miami. The Heat shot 30 percent in the period, their third-worst
performance from the field of the entire season - while the Spurs sizzled away at 63 percent.

Slowly, things moved toward evening out. And an inspired start to the third by Miami cut what
was a nine-point deficit at intermission to 61-60 in the first 1:17 of the second half. Then with
3:05 left in the third, a jumper by Dwyane Wade, followed by a free throw by Shane Battier on the
same play (he was fouled while setting a screen) got the Heat within one again, 75-74.

That's when the bottom fell out - again.

"Once we got it back to one, we felt that we'd weathered the storm," Spoelstra said. "Then we
missed a couple shots that we normally are accustomed to making, and it just snowballed downhill
from there."

Danny Green made a three-pointer to start the San Antonio surge to close the third, and Manu
Ginobili scored seven more points before the end of the period to help push the Spurs' margin to 12
at 87-75 entering the fourth.

By then, the Spurs had more than enough space to weather Miami's last rally. The Heat cut it
to 109-101 with just less than two minutes to go, which surely made getting outscored by 24
combined points to end the first and third quarters hurt that much more.

"We kept fighting. We kept feeling like we had a chance," Wade said. "This was a game that it
was like we could steal it. But they continued to make shots. Credit to them. Their starters played
big tonight. All of them made shots. They shot 60 percent from the field in a tough game."